Papers by alexandre morin-chasse
Science & Education, 2020
The paper presents an experimental study that examines the conditions required for news about beh... more The paper presents an experimental study that examines the conditions required for news about behavioral genetics to activate genetic essentialism beliefs. Nine hundred sixty-five adults living in the USA were randomly assigned to read either a control news article or one of the three versions of a news story about behavioral genetics. The cautious version presents a general introduction to behavioral genetics and examples while also discrediting the genetic determinist myth and clarifying that this field is not interested in studying differences between populations. Another version was identical to the cautious version, except that it mentioned high heritability estimates as supporting evidence. Finally, a third version included claims supporting Nicolas Wade's (2014) main thesis, which argued that societies develop different institutions partly because of their population's behavioral genetic predispositions. Compared to participants in the control group, those exposed to the high heritability version and the Wade's thesis version reported higher scores on a scale measuring belief in genetics determinism. The results revealed no overall effect for the cautious version, but an exploratory interaction model indicates that reactions to this version vary depending on educational attainment. Implications and limitations are discussed.
Political Science Research and Methods, 2017
esearchers studying electoral participation often rely on post-election surveys. However, the rep... more esearchers studying electoral participation often rely on post-election surveys. However, the reported turnout rate is usually much higher in survey samples than in reality. Survey methodology research has shown that offering abstainers the opportunity to use face-saving response options succeeds at reducing overreporting by a range of 4-8 percentage points. This finding rests on survey experiments conducted in the United States after national elections. We offer a test of the efficacy of the face-saving response items through a series of wording experiments embedded in 19 post-election surveys in Europe and Canada, at four different levels of government. With greater variation in contexts, our analyses reveal a distribution of effect sizes ranging from null to minus 18 percentage points.
Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Politics, 2017
The American public's beliefs about the causes of social inequality vary greatly, with debates ov... more The American public's beliefs about the causes of social inequality vary greatly, with debates over the causes of racial inequality tending to be the most salient and divisive. Among whites in particular, liberals tend to see inequality as rooted in society's ills, whereas conservatives tend to see inequality as rooted in individuals’ shortcomings. Given this, many infer that white conservatives are more likely than white liberals to adopt the controversial view that racial inequality is “natural,” i.e., due to genetically inherited characteristics. We argue that genetic explanations for racial inequality, in and of themselves, offer little appeal to white conservatives. However, when white citizens are exposed to media messages that emphasize the egalitarian implications of genetic similarity between racial groups, those on the left and right engage in biased assimilation, resulting in a “nature” (conservative) versus “nurture” (liberal) divide. Data from two studies of white Americans—one representative survey and one experiment—support this theoretical framework.
This paper disentangles the relationship between election outcomes and satisfaction with democrac... more This paper disentangles the relationship between election outcomes and satisfaction with democracy. As the first comparative study to employ a measure of satisfaction immediately before and after elections, we can be unusually confident that any changes we observe are attributable to election outcomes. Following previous work, we affirm that voting for parties that win more votes, more legislative seats, and more cabinet seats boosts satisfaction with democracy. In addition, we demonstrate for the first time that voters are sensitive to deficits in representation; satisfaction with democracy decreases when one's party's seat share falls short of its vote share.
Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 2015
Discoveries from the field of behavioral genetics regularly appear in the mainstream news media. ... more Discoveries from the field of behavioral genetics regularly appear in the mainstream news media. Although science journalists generally present reliable reports of these research findings, the way this information is interpreted by the public remains unclear. In the current study, I examined this issue using a blinded randomized controlled experiment implemented using a Web survey. In total, 1413 American subjects were exposed to one of three published news articles: one covering cancer genetics and the two others covering recent findings from behavioral genetics research. The results indicate that both treatments inadvertently contribute to increasing subjects' impression that genetics also influence other orientations, skills, and behaviors that are at best loosely related to the content of the news. This finding highlights an important paradox: The dissemination of news about behavioral genetics unintentionally induces unfounded beliefs that are not supported by the scientific evidence presented, therefore going against the educational purpose of science reporting.
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Papers by alexandre morin-chasse